


The Full Experience

by seekwill



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Camping, First Kiss, Idiots in Love, Lake District, Love Confessions, Lower Tadfield (Good Omens), M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 00:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekwill/pseuds/seekwill
Summary: Adam Young stumbles upon one of the few activities Aziraphale and Crowley haven't done in their time on earth: camping. Without truly wanting to, the ineffable pair finds themselves setting up camp in the Lake District, and doing a fairly poor job of it. The key to a more successful evening is found in the stars.





	The Full Experience

**Author's Note:**

> **Based on a prompt from tumblr user hiwdeux**
> 
> Fic plot: Post Armageddon, pre-established or pining relationship, author's choice. Now that they're free of their heavenly and hellish duties, Crowley and Aziraphale decide to indulge in more human things to better understand their new 'side'. Seeking advice from (insert author's GO character of choice here - Adam, Madam Tracey, Anathema, etc), the two settle on camping with no miracles or demonic intervention. Hijinks ensue. Terrible weather, who knows how to pitch a tent, WILDLIFE, etc.

“You should go camping!”

“Camping?” Crowley sneered and looked away from Adam. The demon and the angel had come in from the city for the day to Jasmine Cottage. It had been some weeks now since the almost-end-of-the-world and the subsequent body-swap events, and it had only just started to land for them that maybe, just maybe, Heaven and Hell were going to keep their distance. That they might let them alone. Crowley didn’t know if it would last forever, but this reprieve was enough, at least for now.

It was a strange little community that had been forged on that day, the only witnesses to the almost-but-not-quite. An angel, a demon, a witch, a failed computer programmer, a Witchfinder Sergeant, a supposed medium, and four preteens. Crowley found, though he never would have said it, that he liked expanding his circle of friends. That they were such a mismatched bunch was even better. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Shadwell and Madame Tracy since shortly after the big event, but he’d kept tabs on Anathema and Newt, who in turn saw more of the Them than Crowley expected they really wanted to.

Fall had settled in and they enjoyed the perfect autumn weather in the garden. Crowley watched as the Them minus Adam demonstrated some sort of game to Aziraphale and Newt, which seemed comprised primarily of attempting to balance Wensleydale on Brian and Pepper’s shoulders. It would surely lead to some sort of injury before the day was out, and Crowley felt begrudgingly proud of them.

“Camping is brilliant!” Adam pulled Crowley back into their conversation. The boy was obsessed with trying to find things that Aziraphale and Crowley hadn’t done in their 6000 years on earth. His every guess - riding a roller coaster, sword fighting, eating raw octopus - had been foiled, until now. Camping. How hideously mundane. Civilization had worked so hard to build all these wonderful and convenient things and here humans were, putting in loads of work to try to escape it only to be thwarted by bad weather, rugged terrain, and in many cases other campers. On second thought, it sounded like the kind of thing Hell had cooked up. Maybe a Dagon project. Now Crowley was slightly miffed that he hadn’t come up with it himself. Didn’t mean he had any desire to partake.

It was as if Adam could read his thoughts. “Don’t make that face. Don’t look like that. I went camping with my dad and it was great. We hiked and ate hot dogs, and he even let me have a sip of beer and it was disgusting! And then at night I thought there was a bear outside but dad checked and it was just a rabbit. I bet  _ he _ hasn’t been camping.” Adam pointed to Aziraphale, who was watching Wensleydale intently, clearly waiting for the moment he would inevitably tumble from his friends’ grasp.

“No. I don’t think that’s his speed,” Crowley responded, following Adam’s eyes to the angel. Aziraphale liked comfort and familiar things. For cripe’s sake, he had been wearing the same waistcoat since the 1800s. Still refused to get a mobile phone, even though it would make Crowley’s life infinitely easier for keeping tabs on him.

“Why on earth would you need to keep tabs on me?” Aziraphale had laughed in response to Crowley’s prodding.

“You know, in case of celestial emergencies or whatever.” But Aziraphale had stood firm. In truth, Crowley was less concerned about celestial emergencies as he was about always feeling connected to Aziraphale. He had hoped that this being on their own side would spur something new between them, would open up the thing he knew existed in himself and he had hoped lived in Aziraphale as well. This extremely mortal, human love. But it hadn’t happened. They saw each other every day, and yet nothing had happened. Crowley hadn’t actually tried to initiate anything of course. He didn’t know that he knew how. He did know that he loved the angel, more than any other thing and in a way completely unfitting for an occult being such as himself.

“What are you guys talking about?” Anathema had come out to the garden now, some sort of awful smelling herbal tea concoction in hand.

“Aziraphale and Crowley are going camping!” Adam exclaimed.

“Are not!” Crowley responded hotly.

“What are we doing?” Aziraphale called from across the yard, confused.

“Camping!” Adam cried again.

Crowley shook his head. 

“Oh, that might be…” Aziraphale paused, considering. “Interesting.”

The Them cheered. 

Crowley looked to Anathema for support. Instead, she raised her eyebrows and took a drink from her tea cup. Lowering it, she revealed a tight smirk. “Looks like you’re going camping.”

“Ngk,” said Crowley.

And that was how Aziraphale and Crowley found themselves at the edge of a field, somewhere in the Lake District, standing in front of a tangled pile of rods and tarps that apparently were meant to fit together as a tent. When they had arrived at their spot an hour earlier, Crowley had made to miracle it together, but Aziraphale had stopped him. “We should do this in the spirit it’s meant to be done. Like humans do, you know. We won’t get the full experience otherwise.” Crowley had thrown his head back and groaned dramatically in reply, but he couldn’t deny the angel, he never had been able to.

So the two of them (but mostly Crowley, with Aziraphale offering “helpful” feedback) had attempted to assemble the tent. The tent belonged, strangely, to Aziraphale, who had taken possession of it when a man had left it behind in the book shop and failed to return to collect it. “And what year was that?” Crowley asked through gritted teeth, trying and failing to plant a stake in the ground.

“Around 1955, if my memory serves me,” Aziraphale responded, sheepish in this acknowledgement.

“When you said you had a tent,” Crowley started, rounding on Aziraphale, “I didn’t realize it was an antique. They have modern ones now that basically put themselves together.”

Aziraphale approached the tent, picking up the canvas between his well manicured hands. ( _ Not made for camping _ , thought Crowley.) “Just because it’s older doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.”

Crowley stood back and watched Aziraphale sort through the tent pieces for several agonizing minutes, an internal struggle displayed nakedly on the angel’s face. Finally, Aziraphale looked up at the demon in front of him, a pink flush spreading across his pale cheeks. “I don’t think all the pieces are here,” he said quietly, so that Crowley could barely hear.

“Excuse me?” Crowley could feel his mouth drop open, didn’t bother to hide it. 

“Perhaps that’s why the chap never came back to get it. I think we’re missing a few key parts.”

Crowley suppressed a curse, exasperated beyond measure, but cautious not to make the angel feel worse than he clearly already did. Shoving his hands in his pockets he walked over to the picnic table, and sat heavily on the attached bench.

Dusk had enveloped them now. The sky to the west had gone pink and yellow, and in the east an inky blue was rising quickly, reaching across the sky above them. The moon crept over the horizon. Aziraphale stood with his back to Crowley as he surveyed the unfinished tent, his hands firmly on his hips.

“Come sit down, angel,” Crowley said quietly, allowing the tension between them to slip away. Aziraphale’s shoulders released, relieved at the lack of bite in Crowley’s voice. Joining Crowley on the bench, the two looked forlornly at the tarps and rods left in a messy pile in front of them.

“You didn’t happen to, er, bring anything to eat did you.”

Now it was Crowley’s turn to feel like a right idiot. He had told Aziraphale he would pick something up. In his anxiety about the trip it had slipped his mind. He barely ate. Going to the market wasn’t second nature to him. “Oh, no. I didn’t.”

Aziraphale received this information with an abbreviated nod. Another silence stretched between them into the dark. The sun was fully set now and constellations were revealing themselves.

“We’re really quite bad at this, aren’t we?” Aziraphale said, his last word catching. Was he crying? Or was he… Crowley turned. Aziraphale had brought his hand to his lips in an attempt to catch his laughter, push it back in.

In spite of his earlier frustration, Crowley’s smile came easily and automatically. “Can you believe humans do this  _ for fun _ ?”

Their laughter rang out into the silent night echoing off the nearby hills, their only accompaniment the sound of the autumn breeze rustling the leaves on nearby trees. The absolute absurdity of the situation - the camping, the fact that they could have miracled this right at any moment but yet somehow hadn’t. 

Crowley put his hands down on the bench, his laughter trailing off. And then, soft, warm skin on his. Aziraphale had put his hand down, his little finger overlapping Crowley’s. It was so little contact. So little it could be a mistake. But there was something deliberate about it, not to mention the fact that the angel hadn’t snatched his hand away... He must know. He had to know.

He turned to Aziraphale, the beat of his useless heart suddenly hammering in his ears. Aziraphale was looking up at the sky, the stars.

“You can’t see them like this in the city.” Aziraphale said, voice near full with wonder.

Crowley followed his gaze to the dark blue night, a mess of stars and galaxies, far off planets. This universal canvas he knew so well. It was so long ago now, before time, before he had sauntered vaguely downwards to Lucifer and Co. When he was still among God’s most beloved creatures.

“You made them.” A statement.

“Yeah.” They had never talked about it. In 6000 years, it had never come up. A pause. “Good guess.”

“A guess?” Aziraphale turned to the demon, love writ large on his face. “Darling, who else could it have been?”

Oh, oh. Crowley inhaled sharply. He had forgotten how to speak, how to form words.

“Why, you’re absolutely made of it. The night, the cosmos. You’re written all over it. It’s written all over you.” Aziraphale took the hand that had lain on Crowley’s, brought it to his cheek, let his fingertips ghost over the demon’s sharp cheekbones, the snake tattoo by his ear. 

Crowley leaned into the touch. Born from the place Aziraphale was touching him, warmth spread into his body. Down his long neck and into his chest, warming his nervous limbs. It was a relief. It was love. For a moment he was worried he may cry with gratitude. He was not alone.

With his free hand, Aziraphale brought Crowley’s hand to his lips, pressed a single, tentative kiss to his palm. The hot touch cracked him open. He felt he might spill out everywhere, be entirely unable to contain what was inside of him. “Angel,” he said, voice thick with want.

Aziraphale smiled softly, held Crowley’s hand to his round cheek. “I’m sorry, my love, for taking so long. But now seemed the time, doesn’t it?”

Crowley released a strangled sort of moan. They could stop at this. It was as good as an admission and if they went any further, if he said it, if  _ Aziraphale _ said it, Crowley thought he might discorporate then and there. He knew now that Aziraphale felt it too, this tender, sweet and mortal thing. It could be enough. It could be…

“You should kiss me now, I think.” Aziraphale’s voice was a whisper, yet deafening in the silent night. An invitation. A suggestion that Crowley would never forget, not for the rest of his existence.

For once, he did exactly as he was told. He closed the space between them and was immediately in over his head. Drowning and dying of thirst all at once. To kiss Aziraphale, to hold him like this had only ever been a dream, a persistent fantasy that nagged at him, made every moment without the angel less somehow. 

“I didn’t want to go too fast,” he muttered into Aziraphale’s mouth. “I didn’t want to be too much.”

Aziraphale drew back, dark brows knitted together. “Crowley,” he admonished. “Even with eternity, it would never be enough.”

They pressed their foreheads together, fingers clutching at collars, lapels, tracing hairlines and the shapes of ears.

Crowley glanced up at the sky, smiled at the blanket of stars. How could anyone look at this and feel insignificant, he wondered. He had never felt bigger.

Yeah, camping was brilliant.

**Author's Note:**

> Connect with me on tumblr, [here (personal)](https://bestoftheseekwill.tumblr.com/) or [here (GO dump side-blog)](https://jasmine-cottage-uk.tumblr.com/).


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